John McLaughlin, the Yorkshire-born musician who found himself on Miles Davis's Bitches Brew in 1969 and became a guitar legend, has returned to Ronnie Scott's for the first time in 44 years. Musing on the late proprietor's likely opinion of his heavy-hitting 4th Dimension quartet, McLaughlin wryly surmised that Scott might drawl, "That's not jazz." But an R&B instinct runs deep with McLaughlin (he played with Cream's Jack Bruce and jammed with Hendrix in the 60s) and his powerful set growled and wailed with rock riffs and the blues, even if his blistering improvisations have a jazz player's daring.

McLaughlin fixed the audience in an unswerving gaze while he was ripping out the opener's brittle, fast-fusion melody over drummer Ranjit Barot's funk gallop and bass guitarist Etienne M'Bappe's springy countermelody. Then keyboardist Gary Husband launched the first of a string of creative interventions with a Fender Rhodes solo that sustained his boss's flying momentum. A slower groover followed, accented by abruptly slamming halts and coloured by high, violin-like shimmers from the guitar, and then a rocking blues. The band folded warmly around the guitar on a ballad of long, arching sounds splintered by double-time bursts, after which McLaughlin – visibly relaxing – began effusively swapping fast phrases with his three partners. The brooding themes of the guitarist's famous 1970s Mahavishnu Orchestra were then implied, but teasingly avoided, Husband unfurled a classically graceful straight piano passage, and the show wound up on a jubilantly demented drums exchange between Barot and Husband – a gifted multi-instrumentalist who used to play the kit for 80s chart act Level 42. McLaughlin, acknowledging the cheers, looked genuinely touched.